


puzzle pieces

by cliche_username



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Bang Chan is Chris Bang, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, No editing we die like mne, OT3RACHA, Team as Family, really that's it just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 06:49:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16383365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cliche_username/pseuds/cliche_username
Summary: “YOU is the person who made you better, isn’t it? So who gives you strength? Who encourages you to be more?”Chris misses a beat, and then he laughs. “I have an answer, but you’re going to think I’m really cheesy.”





	puzzle pieces

**Author's Note:**

> I AM: YOU more like I AM: LIVING
> 
> happy release day!! I have watched the m/v like 400 times and I keep getting Team As Family not-really-subtext so this happened. 
> 
> I love my nine (9) Tiny Sons and am very proud and also please give Chris Bang much love he has worked so hard for this!!!

It doesn’t take long-- maybe four takes-- before they realize the issue isn’t really limited to technique. Chris’s voice sounds fine, he’s hitting all the notes and the rhythm is fine. It’s something else that Jisung can’t quite put his finger on.

“It sounds fine, hyung,” he says over the intercom. “I don’t think you’re doing anything wrong. It’s just not… right? That sounds stupid, I know--”

“It’s fine,” Chris says, pulling off the headphones. “Thanks for the reassurance. Does it sound weird that I don’t think I’m really…  _ feeling  _ it?”

Jisung has to think about this for a moment. “Not really,” he says in the end, and then turns to Changbin, who’s half-watching the whole thing over his laptop screen. “Is that weird?”

“Not weird,” Changbin says. “Can’t be resolved with practice, though.”

“Changbin-hyung says not weird,” Jisung reports back. Chris chuckles.

“Thanks, Binnie,” he says. “Sung, roll it again.”

Jisung glances back at Chanbgin. Changbin shrugs. Jisung says, “rolling,” and rolls the track.

Chris sings his whole part through fine, but he yanks off his headphones after and rakes his fingers through his hair. Jisung rolls his chair far enough to the left to watch Chris clearly through the booth window, checking the line of his shoulders and the set of his mouth. It’s been a long night in the middle of a string of long nights, and none of them would want this to end in tears. Or something worse.

He rolls back over to the soundboard and hits the intercom button again. “Give it a minute, Hyung,” he says. “Come back in here and we’ll figure it out.”

“It’s fine, I can do this,” Chris replies. 

“The problem can’t be fixed until we know what the problem is, Hyung,” Jisung replies. “It won’t even be a break, it’ll be troubleshooting.”

Chris’s mouth slants sideways in displeasure, but he doesn’t argue any further. He steps around the mic stand and leaves the recording booth, and if he pulls the door shut a little harder than necessary Jisung’ll let it go for the moment. 

He spins the office chair around to face the rest of the room as Chris flops down on the couch. “So,” he says. “Talk to me.”

“What’s to say?” Chris says. “I’m not feeling it. I’m tired and I’m being stupid. What else is new?”

“You’re not being stupid,” Changbin says from behind his laptop. 

“There’s something new,” Jisung says. Then he says, “Kidding. So you’re not feeling it, hm?” He spins his chair a bit more, enough to reach back to the soundboard and grab his pen. He taps it against his chin and tries to put on his best TV Therapist face. “What do you think you’re not feeling? Is it the message? The vibe? Have you overdrawn your ‘cool emotional guy’ side for the quarter? I  _ knew  _ we shouldn’t have done karaoke, Celine Dion always takes a lot out of you--”

Changbin kills this train of thought by throwing an empty styrofoam cup at him. “Killing the vibe, Sungie.”

“Sorry.”

Chris chuckles. Jisung suddenly doesn’t care that he had to be interrupted. “I feel like I’m thinking about it wrong,” Chris adds. “Like, this is talking to them, right?”

_ Them. _ STAY. “Not necessarily,” Jisung says. “YOU is the person who made you better, isn’t it? So who gives you strength? Who encourages you to be more?”

Chris misses a beat, and then he laughs. “I have an answer, but you’re going to think I’m really cheesy.”

“ _ Hyung, _ ” Jisung scoffs. “Who do you think you’re talking to?” He opens his arms as if to say,  _ you are facing the true king of cheese, come at me bro,  _ and Chris chuckles.

“Fine,” he says, leaning back and looking up at the ceiling. “Give me a second.” He takes a deep breath, and a smile marches from one corner of his mouth to the other. “If YOU is someone who gave me strength when no one else did, then-- I don’t see anyone else that YOU could be.” He picks his head up and looks at them both, one after the other, and when his eyes meet Jisung’s the truth of what he’s saying kind of just…  _ clicks. _

“Oh, man, Hyung,” he says, and he covers his face because he can’t look at Chris now without doing something stupid like crying. “That really is cheesy.” He looks through his fingers as Changbin unfolds his legs to kick Chris.

“You’re giving me feelings, stop it,” he pouts, and Chris laughs.

“I mean it,” he says. “All of Skiz are important to me. It’s all of us or none of us. But I didn’t-- when I thought I’d lost hope, I didn’t get all of Skiz.” He turns his head towards Jisung again, and Jisung lowers his hand to let the moment fall like it’s supposed to. “I got you,” Chris says.

Jisung doesn’t have words for that, just a high-pitched squeak that escapes through his fingers when he covers his face with both hands. Changbin makes a similar noise, but it’s the noise that Changbin makes when he covers up his feelings with aegyo because he’s embarrassed. When Jisung uncovers his face a bit, he sees Changbin putting down his computer and shuffling across the couch to bury his face in Chris’s shoulder. Chris laughs.

“I love you,” he says to Changbin. Changbin makes another absurd squeaking noise. Chris laughs again and dabs at his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. Tears after all, then. It could be worse, Jisung supposes.

“You know what you’ve got to do, then,” he says, leaning back in his chair and giving Chris the enormous smile that’s been working its way across his face. “If we’re YOU.”

“What do I have to do?” Chris asks, with his arm around Changbin’s shoulders. Jisung feels his smile get impossibly bigger.

“You’ve got to go back into that recording booth,” he says, “And serenade the  _ fuck  _ out of us.”

Chris laughs. Jisung giggles. Changbin, still buried in Chris’s shoulder, frees one hand to thump it against Chris’s chest. It looks like agreement. “Will you let me go?” Chris asks, and Changbin grumbles and pulls away. Chris looks at him and laughs again and dabs at Changbin’s cheeks with his hoodie sleeve, too. “Serenading, then,” he says. “I can do that.”

“I expect to be  _ wooed _ ,” Changbin says, taking over drying his eyes with his own sleeve. “I want my heart to dance like I’m in a girl group song.”

“We have  _ very  _ high standards,” Jisung adds.

“I hope I can live up,” Chris says, and gets up, giving the top of Changbin’s head a kiss before he goes. On the way past the sound board, Jisung offers him a fist bump. Chris smiles like he’s only allowed one smile for the next hundred years and he’s got to make it count, and he gives Jisung a fist bump and goes into the recording booth.

“Okay,” he says over the intercom. “Serenading time.”

“Wooing-Changbin time!” Jisung replies. “Rolling tape!”

Chris nails it on the first take. Then he does two more, just to be sure. It doesn’t just  _ sound _ perfect, either; Chris has finally captured the  _ feel  _ of it. It makes Jisung remember things-- 3RACHA, and Stray Kids, and blood and sweat and tears and triumph and joy and stupid happy stuff-- and smile even more.

When Chris comes out of the recording booth, Jisung clutches at his heart and squeals. Then he gives Chris a high-five. Then he remembers he missed something, and bounces after Chris to the couch. He shoves Chris towards the middle so that Changbin can snuggle into his shoulder again, and then he takes Chris’s other shoulder.

“You sound good, I’ll play it in a minute,” he says. “I just wanted to do this first.” He snuggles a little closer. “Love you, hyung.”

Chris wraps an arm around his shoulders. Jisung can hear him smile when he says, “Love you too. Now play it back so we can go home.”

“Home! Home! Home!” Changbin squeaks, and bounces off the couch to do it himself.

Jisung twists around to look at Chris, and when their eyes meet they both laugh. No tearful ending tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on tumblr @captainpeggys if you want to yell about ot3RACHA or any of our other 9 sons. peace out


End file.
